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A Delicate Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with sage, cayenne, salt, bread crumbs, salt pork, and butter, served with potato or green corn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

A Delicate Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Soak the pig in cold water overnight, changing the water in the morning.

  2. Wipe the pig dry and rub the inside with a mixture of sage, cayenne, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Stuff the pig with a dressing made of bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, black pepper, sweet marjoram, and 1 egg.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a rack in a dripping pan with some water and sprigs of sage and marjoram tied in muslin.

  2. Keep the pig floured until half cooked, then remove the flour and return it to the oven.

  3. Baste the pig with butter several times until fully roasted, about three hours.

Serve

  1. Serve on a large platter with a potato or small ear of un-husked green corn in its mouth.

  2. Thicken the gravy from the dripping pan with flour and season to taste with pepper and salt.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the stuffing a soft, moist body.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and carries savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and stay tender during basting.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the gravy from the dripping pan.

The step that matters

Keep the pig floured until half cooked, then remove the flour and return it to the oven. The flour coating shields the skin from drying and over-browning early, so the skin can crisp once the coating is removed. Removing it at the right point lets the surface brown evenly rather than burn or turn pasty.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, pepper, bread, pork, egg, butter):

  1. Marjoramthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper, bread, pork, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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